The world premier of Nothing But the Truth at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown was hailed by critics variously as one of the greatest days in South African theatre history and a pivotal cultural moment. Alan Swerdlow commented that Kani had written a play that was so brimming with humanity and compassion, married seamlessly with its intellectual standpoint, that the audience left the theatre elated and stimulated. In the same article, Darryl Accone pointed out that this was indeed the play the new South Africa had been waiting for. It dealt with the contradictions of liberation and the perplexities of freedom in an utterly exhilarating manner. He added, ‘Strikingly, beneath its humour and humanity, Nothing But the Truth is a deeply political play of immense subtlety and depth.’ Another critic, Guy Willoughby, trumpeted that the thematic terrain explored was fascinating, taking South Africa out of the didactic ‘protest’ stage mode into theatrical forms that conveyed the complex political dynamics of the democratic era. The audiences agreed. The full-house performances received standing ovations.

This turning point in South African drama began with a casual conversation outside a restaurant in the Market Theatre precinct. I mentioned to John Kani that I was bothered by the references that were often made to Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island as Athol Fugard's plays, without ever crediting John Kani and Winston Ntshona. This is common not only in the academy but also among international theatre practitioners and commentators. Some are indeed generous enough to mention Kani and Winston Ntshona, but reduce them to Fugard's appendages who happened to be present when the great master wrote the two plays. Yet these plays are a result of the creative synergy of three great creators: Fugard, Kani and Ntshona, in an alphabetic order that has unfortunately conferred on the first name the status of the sole or — at the very least — supreme creator. I know from my association with some of the artists of the Serpent Players — the New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, theatre company to which the creators of the seminal works belonged — that without Kani and Ntshona Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island would never have been written.